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THE AMERICAN NATURALIST [Vol. XLIX 



Oenothera Lamarckiana Seringe. Whichever of the two speci- 

 mens considered above represents the type, or if both were con- 

 cerned in the description, the evidence is to me very strong that 

 Lamarck dealt with forms of 0. grandiflora Solander. I can see 

 no proof or even reasonable evidence that the Lamarckiana of 

 De Vries's cultures agrees with either of the specimens from 

 Lamarck's herbarium. A final judgment, however, should not 

 be made until we have before us details respecting the pubescence 

 of the specimens known to Lamarck. 



De Vries is very positive that two other sheets in the collec- 

 tions at Paris present specimens agreeing with his Lamarckiana. 

 The first of these (De Vries, Plate XVIII) is from the her- 

 barium of Abbe Pourret and shows material which seems to me 

 to offer very much the same difficulties to an identification with 

 De Vries's Lamarckiana as do the specimens of Lamarck. The 

 foliage of lanceolate leaves clearly petioled, the slender tapering 

 buds, the long delicate hypanthium; these are not characters 

 representative of the plants from the cultures of De Vries. They 

 are characters of 0. grandiflora Solander and should the pubes- 

 cence prove to be similar to this species I should not hesitate to 

 place these specimens of Abbe Pourret among the forms of 

 grandiflora. Until we know the facts of the pubescence, further 

 discussion is unwise, but it does not seem to me that De Vries's 

 identification rests on good evidence. 



The remaining sheet at Paris which De Vries (Plate XIX) 

 identifies with his Lamarckiana is a plant from the herbarium 

 of Andre Michaux. De Vries on historic grounds naturally 

 attaches importance to this sheet for if it could be established 

 as in agreement with his plants the fact would bear directly on 

 the problem of the origin of 0. Lamarckiana. The flowers are 

 large and the buds rather stout as we find them in our cultivated 

 Lamarckiana, but the sepal tips are longer and the bracts much 

 narrower than in Lamarckiana. The most striking characters 

 of this specimen as shown in the photograph are the narrow 

 lanceolate leaves and the extraordinary length of their petioles. 

 That such a plant could be related to De Vries's Lamarckiana 

 which has ovate-lanceolate leaves, sessile or almost sessile, seems 

 to me well nigh impossible. Of the pubescence De Vries tells 

 us nothing, yet the numerous buds on the specimen should make 

 it easy to determine this character and it may become a crucial 

 point in judging the possible or impossible relationships of the 

 plant. 



